UK Leaders Have Betrayed Those Who Fought in WW2

 

Amid the 80th anniversary of VE day, we reflect on how British governments have failed to uphold the principles men and women defended during 1939-45.

We Britons can rightly be proud of helping to win the Second World War 80 years ago. 

Soviet and American power mainly proved decisive in defeating the evils of Nazi Germany and fascist Japan. But British and Commonwealth men and women played key roles and made huge sacrifices in many European and Asian theatres of war. 

Some 384,000 British soldiers died, along with over 70,000 civilians, mainly in the Blitz. Nearly 200,000 soldiers from Commonwealth countries were also killed.

For British officials imperialist interests were certainly at play during WW2, especially in protecting the Empire, which covered around a quarter of the world’s population in 1939. 

But ordinary Britons weren’t fighting to defend the Empire. They were risking their lives to protect the country from invasion, which meant stopping Hitler dominating Europe. In practice, this signified defeating fascism and liberating subjugated and occupied people from tyranny.

But how have British political leaders upheld such grand principles our forebears rose up to promote decades ago?  (more...)

UK Leaders Have Betrayed Those Who Fought in WW2